Tool’s Maynard James Keenan Contracted COVID a Fourth Time After European Tour

Maynard James Keenan, singer for Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer, has contracted COVID four times, the most recent being after the completion of Tool's European tour that came to a close in late May.

His first bout with COVID was revealed in October of 2020, when he confirmed that he had also been battling prolonged side effects after initially contracting the disease in February, including lung damage, coughing fits due to damage "at this tips" of those vital organs and inflammation in his hands and wrists. Then, in April of last year, Keenan told Loudwire in an exclusive interview that he went to a hospital's emergency room to be treated for his second COVID infection that previous October, but was "all good" again.

At some point, he evidently got COVID a third time and, in a new interview with AZ Central, the singer disclosed his fourth COVID diagnosis, which was quite recent. Tool's European tour in continued support of 2019's Fear Inoculum stretched from April 23 through May 24 with support from Brass Against and, while on the road, Keenan got what he facetiously referred to as "the European-flavored" strain of the infectious disease that is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

"It was a flu. It's done," he said of the fourth experience.

It's not something that appears to have taken him by surprise at all as he further commented, "I mean, when you're in a room full of thousands of people, it's being passed around. You get into a tube and you fly 10 hours in a contained environment, you're gonna get it. If somebody has it and you're gonna get it, you can get it. That's just the nature of what it is now. We need to embrace that and stop freaking the (expletive) out."

Cycling off of Tool for the time being, Keenan is returning to the stage with Puscifer on a headlining U.S. tour which kicks off today (June 9) and will continue through July 10. See all of the upcoming dates here.